


I'll Be

by JovialHarp5159



Category: Marvel, Marvel 199999, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Comas - Freeform, Multi, Multiverse, Near Death Experiences, Omniverse, Out of Body Experiences, depictions of suicide/self harm, graphic depictions of violence in chapter 'for what it is worth', time wimey stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 10:39:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JovialHarp5159/pseuds/JovialHarp5159
Summary: "The fight had been going well. A bunch of mutants playing at being big bad villains, but they were easy to take down. Steve and Natasha were working on pushing the last of the stragglers toward the middle of central park, where the rest of the team was on standby, keeping an eye on the rest of them, until the barebones remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D could figure out what to do with them. Everything had been going so well. Granted, it’s the seventh or eighth fight they’ve had this week, but this is /small stuff/. When Steve hears that a teammate is down, his first reaction is not who, or where, but ‘how’.He’s not expecting to hear that it’s Tony."or: a study in what happens, when a teammate suddenly collapses in the field, and spends half a week in a coma.





	1. Who's Crying Now

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, I had a blast working on this fic, with the wonderful Caz! you can see the fic that inspired this fic here: https://78.media.tumblr.com/fff15d0edc9c0484113f833accf9ae50/tumblr_pa2rjoqH5W1xro0pco1_1280.png 
> 
> as well as an additional scene here: https://78.media.tumblr.com/60468823f5919f139fdf675df075eac5/tumblr_pa2rjoqH5W1xro0pco2_1280.png 
> 
> she was an absolute dream to work with, and I hope you enjoy the fic! as usual for me, all titles and chapters are named for a song, let me know if you want to know more!
> 
> "One love feeds the fire, one heart burns desire, wonder, who's crying now? Two hearts born to run, who will be the lonely one, wonder, who's crying now?"

The fight had been going well. A bunch of mutants playing at being big bad villains, but they were easy to take down. Steve and Natasha were working on pushing the last of the stragglers toward the middle of central park, where the rest of the team was on standby, keeping an eye on the rest of them, until the barebones remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D could figure out what to do with them. Everything had been going so well. Granted, it’s the seventh or eighth fight they’ve had this week, but this is /small stuff/. When Steve hears that a teammate is down, his first reaction is not who, or where, but ‘how’.

 

He’s not expecting to hear that it’s Tony.

 

He ends up giving the team a few simple directives, Sam comes around to help Natasha finish the task, Vision takes his place on air support, and other than that, the team remains mostly unchanged. Barton’s shaking when Steve gets to him, and he isn’t cracking a joke, he isn’t even so much as smirking. all of the color drains out of Steve’s face. Those signs don’t bode well.

“what happened, Clint?”

 

Clint looks back and forth from Tony, or more accurately the impassive, glinting iron man mask, and Steve a grand total of three times before he manages to speak.

 

“he just… fell.” Steve raises an eyebrow, and resists the urge to tilt his head to the side.

 

“he… ok? Who attacked him, what powers? medics are on their way but we need to kno—”

 

“no, you don’t understand, he just, /fell/. We had just taken down an invisible kid, and one who could control rocks, and he just… went down, like a lead balloon. He wasn’t hit, he just—” Steve isn’t sure why, but he doesn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. It can’t be that he just went down, something had to have happened, maybe he was hit out of Clint’s line of sight.

 

“Okay. That’s… how far did he fall, is there much left of the suit? Maybe we can have medical go over the footage that FRIDAY picked up?” Clint looks up toward the sky, and Steve feels his stomach flip over for every inch more that his eyes travel up. Finally, mercifully, they stop, and Steve swallows thickly.

 

“about there. maybe… twenty stories, tops.”

Steve feels his blood freeze over, as S.H.I.E.L.D issue medics rush the scene. Twenty stories is… a lot.

**

 The first sign that this is going to be a massive nightmare is all the furtive looks Steve’s getting from the medical team. As the point man, it’s his job to stand around and look pretty, assist in whatever way he can, until a team member is patched up, or adequately transferred back to base. More often than not, he gets completely ignored, which is fine by him, but today… every single medic that he walks past looks up at him, and back down to their tasks. Something is wrong, but no one quite has the guts to tell him what.

 

He’s shocked, for the second time today, when he’s told that Tony’s injuries are beyond the scope of what S.H.I.E.L.D can handle. They’re trained to deal with burns and bumps, contusions, and the odd intergalactic chemical burn, but whatever’s affecting Tony… they can’t touch. That means air transfer to a private hospital. Somewhere, a S.H.I.E.L.D lackey tells the team— who have managed to amble over, with the rest of their mission complete— where there are some of the best doctors in the state. Steve isn’t sure why, but that doesn’t exactly make him feel better.

 

They spend another five minutes solid looking for a way to get Tony out of the suit, and Steve merely rolls his eyes, and steps closer, touching the tiniest indentation at the back of the neck, where sure enough, plates start losing their cohesion, and falling off, into a brilliant, gold and hot rod red mess on the ground. Steve’s not prepared for seeing Tony’s face. He’s seen him injured before, of course, they’ve been on the same team for years, and Tony’s mind never stops, so there was more than once, more than a hundred times, likely, that he got hurt in his workshop, but this is… different.

 

Steve’s reminded, perhaps morbidly, of wax figures. Made to look lifelike, had the right coloring, and the appearance of who they were meant to model, but… there was just something eerily wrong. All of Tony’s usual, frenetic, brilliance was just gone. Steve couldn’t even say that it looked like he was sleeping, because even in his sleep, he’d never seen Tony Stark look this still. A wave of nausea rolls over him, tightening in his stomach, and he’s quick to look down, try to steady himself again.

 

There’s a nice, if confused looking paramedic, looking at him, like she’s waiting for the answer to a question.

 

“I’m sorry?” he asks softly, shaking his head. It’s so rare that he doesn’t hear things these days, he must be really out of it. Dehydration maybe, or hunger, though he doesn’t currently feel it. The medic clears her throat and tries again.

“we, ah… it would be helpful if a member of the team, anyone who knows what was going on, what the mission was, any environmental factors, could accompany him. It’ll save some time with the charting, help the doctors know what kind of tests to run.”

Steve turns to look at the rest of the team, worn thin and ragged, several of them looking like they’re only a moment or two from dropping to the ground from pure exhaustion. Steve nods, gently, to himself.

“Head back to the tower. Get showers, food, rest. You can come back any time after that, I’ll… I’ll keep you updated, as best I can.”

**

 

The hospital isn’t as grey or as miserable as Steve had expected it to be, which he supposes is a good thing, except that it bothers him for reasons he can’t quite identify. (He’s getting sick of that, the inability to place feelings.) The tile flooring, the cheery looking wallpaper… even the chairs look like they’re trying too hard, mismatched in a way that _has_ to purposeful. It’s all designed to make the occupants think ‘everything is alright. You’re not waiting on a loved one to die. Look how cute these hodgepodged together chairs are, would anything bad ever happen in a place as quaint as this?’ it makes Steve sick.

 

One of the decorative stock photos on the wall across from him, right next to the picture of “Melinda R., Radiology, Super Star Staff of the Quarter!”, is a seemingly innocent shot of a pretty flower, but the blood red color, is jarring. There are four huge petals clinging desperately to the hairy stem. The seed head is enormous, more closely resembling a forest, than a flower, as zoomed in as it is. It  reminds him of the stories his mother would tell him as a child, when he was coughing too bad to sleep. She was a wonderfully devout Irish catholic woman, so naturally the stories were designed to scare the daylights out of him. He remembers her telling him in hushed tones, of fairy trees, and how naughty little boys and girls that were too curious, might disturb the FaeFolk that lived in those trees, and summon a fetch, an eerie spectral copy of themselves, who would take them away to hell, never to see their mothers and fathers again. He shivers unpleasantly at the memory, and blinks hard, determined to ‘unsee’ the horrific faerie tale his mind had conjured up.

 

He rubs the back of his hands over his eyes, and looks back at the flower, since there’s little else to do. He feels a gust of not-quite amused laughter working through his lungs and nose without his permission. Suddenly he remembers why he recognizes the damn plant. It’s an opium poppy. Steve thinks that if Tony was around to see it, he’d appreciate the irony.

 

A sweet looking brunette nurse holding a clipboard pokes her head out of room 6-16, and smiles tiredly at Steve. “Captain Rogers? We have some information for you on your husband.”

 

Steve’s heart violently skips a beat, the way it would when he was young, and would forget himself, playing. He’s not entirely certain why something so simple-- a mere clerical error, surely-- makes him feel so… fluttery, but he doesn’t have time to parse that at the moment. He clears his throat, and stands, running his palms down his thighs, to try and wipe away any sweat, along with the nerves that had caused it. When he speaks, it’s with a clear, authoritative tone.

 

“That's not...he's not-- he's my partner, not my um. Not my _partner_. Co-captain of the avengers” The nurse-- Famike he can see her nametag now-- seems nearly shocked at that. Her cheeks go a pretty rose pink, and she shuffles through the paperwork that’s on the clipboard in her hands, semi desperately like he’s searching for any lifeline there is.

 

“My apologies Captain. They just said partner, and you're listed as his next of kin. Admitting must have just assumed… I'll get it fixed no problem.”  Steve waves a hand dismissively and for reasons he can't explain it feels damn good to do so.

 

“It's alright ma'am.” He gives her a half expectant half pleading look. “can I see him?” She makes a quiet little nervous noise, and shifts her weight.

 

“it's just supposed to be family right now, the attending hasn't been in yet…” Steve smiles at her, prettily, softly, the kind of smile that’s supposed to make you trust someone.

 

“But surely his husband could see him?” he puts emphasis on the word husband, raises his eyebrows just enough, so that she understands that he’s asking special permission. Knows that there’s really two conversations going on here, the one that they’re having, and the one hiding just underneath the words they’re speaking. Its taking advantage of a fragile system, and Steve should maybe feel bad about it, but… he needs to see Tony. needs to make sure he’s ok. Famike sighs softly, and picks at a torn corner of Tony’s chart.

 

“If… you want to spend some time with him… I have some patients I need to check up on in pediatrics, and I won’t be back for at least a couple of hours. ” she speaks to the chart, instead of to Steve, but he doesn’t care, because she said /yes/. He’s nearly overwhelmed with the desire to sweep her up into a crushing hug, but he refrains, because that’s probably crossing every line that exists in social contract, and it doesn’t matter, because she’s speaking again in the next instant. “His blood sugar is down, electrolytes are down, liver function…” Steve feels like his head is spinning, and he wants to throw up. All of that… that all sounds bad. This is turning out to be worse than even he could have expected it to be.

 

“He’s… he /was/ an alcoholic.” he says softly, in a wrecked, quiet whisper. Famike nods, like she’d already been expecting that, and steve only just manages to keep from making a pathetic sound.

 

“Do you know how long he’s been sober?” she asks softly, and steve sighs. He can picture it clearly, thanks to the serum, the eidetic memory that’s both a blessing and a curse, the chip laying on the bookshelf in Tony’s penthouse apartment. He wasn’t supposed to see it, he’s sure, but then again it wasn’t hiding either. A black thing, with golden writing emblazoned on it, the inscription simple.

 

“Multiple years. That’s… that’s what the chip he has says. I don’t… I’m not exactly sure how long. We never really… talked about it.” and maybe they should have. Maybe Steve should have taken more of an interest in Tony’s recovery. That’s something that’s important isn’t it? Hasn’t he read that hiding recovery leads to looking at it as less important? He shakes his head softly, to free his head of the intrusive thoughts. It’s not like he can do anything about the past now anyway. Famike nods, and writes something down.

 

“No need for us to suspect withdrawal as a factor then. The doctor will likely order a few tests, to see if we can isolate the cause of the coma. From there it’s just… a waiting game.” Steve nods, and makes a mental note to tell the team what’s gone on so far. Familke pats Steve on the shoulder somewhat awkwardly, and goes to move away. “Try not to worry, mister Rogers. Our staff is among some of the best in the state.” that’s the second time he’s heard that said, and not surprisingly, it doesn’t offer him any more comfort than it did the first time.


	2. Hang 'Em High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't stop if I fall, and don't look back, oh baby, don't stop. Bury me, and fade to black!"

Falling sucks. Tony doesn’t remember much about where he is, or what he was doing before, but he knows it feels like several important parts of his spine, that should probably have spaces between them have definitely been compacted. He’s… going to be feeling that tomorrow. He blinks his eyes open slowly, and asks FRIDAY for an adaptive sitrep, tell him what happened since he checked out. The various displays and lights are still blazing bright around him, so power didn’t flicker. Which means…

 

“FRI, what the hell knocked me out of the sky?” no answer comes though, and he scoffs, thinking a bitter ‘e tu, Friday?’. Seems like people have been abandoning him lately, but he didn’t think it applied to tech too. He never thought one of his talents would be scaring off AI that was programmed to do his bidding, but hey, Howard did always say he was an overachiever. Especially in the art of pissing him off. He sighs, and moves to sit up.

 

He’s battered, and beaten, but hadn’t considered the possibility of ‘broken’. Not until sitting up, and getting…. All of nowhere. “the fuck?” he mutters quietly. He tries to sit up again, and still, nothing happens, and he feels the first few tendrils of panic start to set in. he can’t move. He can’t get up, he can’t wiggle his goddamn toes—this is exactly like those horrible paralysis nightmares he used to have as a kid, where he would wake up in a dead sweat, but even still couldn’t move for a solid thirty seconds or so after his eyes started to take in the vaulted ceiling. He swallows thickly, and a weak voiced whine goes down with the very little saliva he has left.

 

He’s just starting to fade out of consciousness, just chasing the little dancing sparkles at the edge of his periphery, when Steve comes over. Sweet, blessed, merciful Steve. Tony sighs loudly. “Oh my god, Capsicle.” Irritatingly, his mouth says nothing, and Steve’s face is a grim, unbroken line. This… this isn’t looking good. The faceplate pops open, and Tony’s relieved, until he sees a look flash across Steve’s face. He looks… sick. Like he’s having a hard time looking at Tony’s face. Yeah, maybe he hadn’t been up to 100% lately. So he might have skipped a day or two shaving, but there’s no need to look like _that_. Tony feels something in his stomach churn, at the feeling of embarrassment, hot and prickling along his cheeks, and the back of his neck. Cap’s probably seen him in more compromising positions, but this… this hurts.

this is when he’d usually play it off with a joke, blame the ninety seven (that might be an exaggeration, but it _felt_ like that many) small time villains that tried to take them out over the last week, but his mouth, his entire _body_ isn’t cooperating, so he has no choice but to lay there and just… wait. Which he’s never been particularly good at. Steve triggers the safety that autoreleases the suit, and that’s when Tony knows it’s… not good. If whatever is going on is serious enough to take him out of the suit, it has to be bad news. Sure enough, like the mere thought is enough to act as harbinger, somewhere over his right shoulder, he hears an emergency medical technician say something about a hospital. Falling really fucking sucks.

 

**

The hospital they take him to is aesthetically pleasing for all intents and purposes, but it’s ugly in every other way that matters. It’s ugly in that he’s taken to the highest floor, and given the quickest medical care, amidst the hushed whispers of ‘Tony Stark’ and ‘Iron Man’. He shouldj’t take precedence over any other patient, just because he has money and a fucked up past. He would be telling them as much too, but he’s stuck, an unwilling passenger on the carnival ride of his own body. He really has to put solid effort into not thinking about how sad exactly that is. Or how apt.

 

He’s gotten tired, and he can tell that his vision is fading around the edge of his periphery again. maybe this time, if he chases the darkness, he’ll be able to go to sleep, wake up with all of this over, and safe and warm in his bed. Despite the fact that he’s pretty sure the last place he slept was in the lab. He tries to track back what he can remember, but the nurses move him into a different bed, and the world tips and spins on its side, dangerously for a few moments. Yeah. Better to stay still. He needs a fucking drink.

 

**

When he wakes again, his head’s a little clearer, and he’s able to hold a thought in his head, without having to work for it like a beggar. He sits up slowly, and runs a hand through his hair. It’s dark, and three doesn’t seem to be anyone around, but there’s mechanical and medical equipment all around the room. It’s kind of odd, actually, it looks like something designed for much more intensive care. He shakes his head, and stands, deciding to deal with that thought later. Maybe they just wanted to make sure they didn’t screw up and kill Tony Stark.

 

He’s just to the edge of the room, just reaching out for the doorknob, when it’s flung open from the other side, and he freezes in his tracks. Maybe it’s an orderly meant to tell him what the fuck is happening, and who he has to sue, to get out of here. The form in front of him looks up, and Tony gasps instantly.

 

“Cap. Hey, buddy, ‘m sorry, dunno what happened. What happened with the battle?” Steve walks past him, like he never even heard, and Tony’s in the process of pouting and telling his co-leader exactly how heinous of a crime that is, when he turns slightly to the side, and gets a good look at the bed. More importantly, the bed, with _him_ in it.

 

For a few seconds, it feels like freefall, like he’s hurtling toward the earth, with nothing to stop him but the ground, but then all at once, it all slams home. In something like .5 seconds, Tony feels his reality bend and shatter at the point of max resistance. He’s laying out in the bed in front of him, lifeless and still, and Steve’s sitting heavily on the uncomfortable looking chair at the side of the bed. Just looking at Tony, like he’s a broken thing. Tony has to admit, from this angle, he kind of does.

 

He’s just gearing up for a truly spectacular breakdown, when he hears a familiar voice behind him.

“Never really did like hospitals, did you?” Steve. Er… another Steve, leans up against the doorjamb, arms folded over a chest that is seriously stretching the Grey T-shirt that’s on it. Tony gives him a look that’s beyond confused, and well into bewildered, and Steve (Steve prime? Tony’s mind suggests, quietly, trying desperately to make some sense of this nonsense.)

 

“S-Steve?” his voice sounds about a thousand times more thin than he wants it to, but hey, he’ll take what he can get. Frankly, he’s shocked that he can speak at all, at this point. “what… what… how? And, /why/, actually?” Steve prime smirks, and takes a step closer.

 

“I came to get you.” Tony waits an inordinate amount of time, to see If Steve prime has anything else to say, but when nothing comes, Tony huffs out a frustrated breath and sets his mind to getting some proper answers out of this situation. Or. He _did_ , that is. Until he gets a closer look at the cloth on Steve prime’s shirt.

 

“Are… Are you wearing a fucking ‘save Ferris’ shirt?” Steve prime looks down, at the grey T shirt in question and shrugs, like it’s nothing.

 

“Better than Less than Zero.” He offers noncommittally, and for one bright, shining second Tony’s so confused that all he can do is blink at Steve for far longer than he probably should, mouth slightly open like he plans on catching a fly. The first words that come to Tony are—as is so usually the case with him—not exactly sensical to the situation at hand.

 

“Fuck you, first of all, Rogers, you’re so wrong, I don’t actually have time to tell you how wrong you are. it was gritty and esoteric and—you just made a movie reference.” Steve slides his hands into the pocket of his (torn, what the hell?) jeans, and shrugs again.

 

“Yeah?” Tony blinks a few times, before breaking out into a hysterical laugh.  “You make a movie reference. You made an 80’s movie reference, and you were under the ice then, which means that you know things you shouldn’t. if you know things you shouldn’t… fuck. I’m hallucinating.” Steve pouts softly, a gentle sloping downturn of his pink lips, and tilts his head to the side, as if hurt.

 

“Tony. You’re not hallucinating.” Tony scoffs.

 

“You’re in a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off themed shirt. Steve. Honey. We both know I’m hallucinating.” Steve prime (the impersonator?) sighs, and shakes his head softly.

 

“You’re not… hallucinating. You’re… it’s hard to explain this place.” Tony looks around them, at the Steve and Tony originals (does that make _him_ an impersonator?) at the other end of the room and turns back to Steve prime/impersonator, clearly not getting it. He opens his mouth to speak, and Steve prime smiles softly. Fondly. “you’re not dead.” Tony raises a single eyebrow, and now it’s his turn to cross his arms, disbelievingly.

 

“Then how are we both here and there?” he gestures over to the other end of the room wildly, suddenly confused, and sporting one hell of a headache for it. (or falling 20 stories. That could be relative.) Steve prime doesn’t say anything at first, merely crosses the room, and stops behind the hospital bed, leans down low, where he can keep his face level with bed ridden Tony’s. the look he gives the engineer is soft, fond, open in a way that makes Tony’s chest hurt, and he has to look away, despite the fact that it’s technically _him_ , receiving that look. Steve prime sighs softly, and rests a hand on Tony originals temple.

 

“Because we’re both _here_.”

Tony laughs. It’s probably rude, and yeah, Steve prime doesn’t seem particularly impressed, but then again, the real Steve probably wouldn’t be either, so maybe that’s a win.

 

“Ok, so we’re both inside my melon. That’s… great.” He scoffs, and shrugs sarcastically. If he’s going to go insane, he might as well go for broke, right? “so let me guess, I have to choose, right? B-between staying here, in the real world, or passing over to the rainbow bridge or whatever?” Steve prime gives him a longsuffering look, and Tony scoffs again. “yeah, thanks, invasion of the Steve snatchers, thanks but no thanks.”

 

Steve prime scoffs and the only response he gives for a long time, is to scowl off into the dramatic mid-distance. “it’s harder than that. You have to choose… staying, it won’t be easy, you know, Tony. just. Think about it.” Tony blinks slowly. Everything about this Steve, from his 80’s pop culture shirt, and ripped jeans, all the way down to his chuck taylors, is designed to make Tony feel comfortable. So why would his brain, which is trying so very hard, to keep him comfortable, tell him something this… serious? He opens his mouth to ask just this, but the door opens again, and a man walks in, leaning against the far wall, near the door. He pulls his dark red ballcap off, and he looks like a dead ringer for Tony, who huffs a soft laugh.

 

“curiouser, and curiouser, right Steve-Person? Pod-Steve? Do you have a prefere—’ he turns, with a smirk, to make sure his joke is being appreciated, and realizes he’s talking to no one at all. He hums to himself softly. “Things just got interesting.”


	3. People Are Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When you're strange, faces come out of the rain, when you're strange, no one remembers your name, when you're strange."

Steve sniffs quietly, turning to look at the intruder on his moment, as soon as he’s aware of the sound of another human being moving. The guy got much closer than he typically would have, but Steve’s… he hates to say grieving, because Tony will come back, he’s confident that he will, but… he just looks so damn _hopeless_ like this. Steve quickly lets go of Tony’s hand (not quite remembering when he picked it up, oddly enough) and faces the door. “This is a private room.”

 

The newcomer sneers, obnoxiously, and raises a placating hand, that Steve sees as pure aggression. “Relax. You want me here.” Steve scoffs blatantly.

 

“I’m sorry?” the new comer steps into the light, and Steve’s breath catches in his chest. He looks almost exactly like Tony. down to the intricate goatee, and the tinted sunglasses (inside.). Steve tilts his head to the side. “who—”

 

“Who I am, isn’t really important. What’s important, big guy, is that I have information you want.” He walks closer to Tony’s bed, and Steve feels something not unlike hackles start to raise on the back of his neck. The newcomer must sense this though, because he sits down in one of the abandoned chairs, and focuses up at Steve. From this distance, Steve can tell that he’s either an active alcoholic, or very recently recovering from addiction. He’s not sure if that makes him feel more or less sympathetic to him. maybe neither. The newcomer clears his throat again, and points to tony, like he’s not the most important person in the room . (not that Steve’s admitting to anything. He’s not.) “Einstein-Rosen bridges. You’ve heard of them, yes? Jane Foster, Thor’s main squeeze?”

 

Steve raises an eyebrow, but nods, confused as to what this stranger could possibly mean. “yeah. I’ve heard of them, it’s some real science fiction stuff.” He answers offhandedly, folding his arms back over himself in a defensive movement. “what about them?” Second Tony nods, and speaks, looking at a spot in the middle of the actual Tony’s blanket, rather than to Steve himself.

 

“Yeah, well. Consider it a whole lot less science fiction, and a lot more science fact.” He turns back to look at Tony, and something shadowy and dark falls over his face. He huffs a hiss out through his teeth. “looks bad.” He offers apropos of nothing. Steve doesn’t know why, but he instantly feels himself getting defensive.

“You don’t know that, the doctors haven’t seen him yet. It’s—” Second Tony scoffs, and stands up in an instant, stepping close to Steve, open challenge written all across his face. A face that’s warmly familiar, and startlingly different, all at once

 

“Look at him, Steve. /really/ look at him. He’s unconscious, and barely fucking breathing. You know just as well as I do that this is a 50/50 thing, if not worse.”  Something ugly, and hot begins to uncurl in Steve’s stomach. He’s angry, he wants to shout this guy down, argue in Tony’s favor but… for all points and purposes, this guy is right. Steve sighs softly, and second Tony smiles like the cat that just got the pet Canary, before sticking out his hand.

 

“Edward. Edward Anthony.” Steve scoffs quietly, or else he must show some derision on his face, because Edward fixes him with an unimpressed look.

 

“go ahead. Ask your boy-toy there how he got his name. Howard and Maria argued about the order a lot, Edward Anthony or Anthony Edward. The day she went into labor, Maria called Howard to come to the hospital, but he ‘couldn’t’ get out of a ‘meeting’ with his secretary. Since he never showed up, she just decided.” Steve blinks confused, and Edward rolls his eyes. “jesus, and they told me you were smart. I’m from a different universe. The other side of an Einstein-Rosen bridge, a galaxy far far away, all that jazz. In my reality, Howard actually bothered to show up, drunk mind you, and signed the birth cert before Maria woke up.” He shrugs briefly, and gestures over to Tony. “so. Tony.” he turns his finger toward himself, and smile self deprecatingly. “Ed. Or E.A.”

 

Steve stares for what is probably longer than socially acceptable, but he can’t exactly bring himself to care. Because Ed is from a different world. Ed is from a different world, and Tony’s still unconscious, and it seems to bee too early in the day, to be dealing with that type of nonsense. He sighs heavily. “Ok, so if… if you’re here from a different world… why?”

 

Silence falls over the room, and Ed shakes his head slightly. “because, I need to make sure that Tony’s ok. Its… pertinent.” Steve’s not sure he likes the way that sounds, not by a long shot, but now isn’t exactly the time to question it.

 

There’s a knock at the door, and an exhausted Famike comes in, smiling tightly up at Steve “Mister Rogers.” She’s professional enough to ignore the snort of amusement from Ed. “ah, we have some blood work back, but it doesn’t look like there should be any major problems, anything keeping him under. The presiding wants to see if he can get something of a medical history, would you be willing to talk to some of our staff about the enemy you were fighting?”

 

Technically speaking, he can’t. all Avengers business is S.H.I.E.L.D. business, until officially declassified by the proper brass. And since S.H.I.E.L.D. is every bit as expansive as the U.S. military, declassifying missions is every bit as much a priority. Which is to say, it isn’t. but he looks over to Tony, limp and helpless in the bed, and he knows he’ll gladly face down a court martial, if it means that there’s the slightest chance that Tony’ll wake up. He still has the good sense to affect a hesitancy he doesn’t feel.

 

“it’s… you’re sure it’s medically important?” she nods, and he sighs. “we were fighting mutants. A rogue group, small. Not particularly powerful, but fast. It… it should have been a routine fight.” His eyebrows knot together in real confusion, as he analyses his memories. He never saw any of the kids get anywhere close to Tony, so what the hell could have happened, to knock him down this badly? There’s a movement at the corner of his periphery, Famike shuffling papers, it would seem, and his attention is pulled back, for another few moments.

 

“and did mister stark come into contact with any superhumans directly? Maybe someone who can control the mind, or certain body functions?” she looks hopeful, and steve desperately wants to give her something to go on but he just… can’t. he shakes his head and looks down to Tony’s near broken form again, feeling personally responsible for this situation, no matter how wildly ridiculous the very idea was. Famike scratches something down on her paper and speaks again, seemingly ticking off a list that Steve can’t see. “ok, and any work with radioactive materials lately, any new experiments medically relevant?” Steve closes his eyes softly.

 

“no, not… not really.” He huffs out a dry laugh, and turns away from the lifeless, pale form of his best friend. “we’ve been so damn busy lately, fifteen calls in the last two days, I don’t think he had time to do much more than sleep.” Famike nods, and scribbles down an additional thing, before turning to Steve with what appeared to be a pleasant smile.

 

“it’s alright, Mister rogers. We’ll have him fixed in no time, our staff is very well educated.” She turns to leave the room, but stops just shy, turning back toward Ed. “sir, I’m sorry, I’m so goal oriented, I didn’t see you before. We’re trying to keep it to family only at this time. May I ask what relation you have to mister Stark? Ed panics, but only for a moment, before his brain kicks into overdrive, and works to find him a quick excuse. He smiles, saccharine sweet, and even goes as far as to bat an eyelash at Famike, who smiles and titters.

 

“Don’t see the family resemblance? I mean, I know I haven’t shaved in a while, but I thought at least I’d be recognizable.” He smirks again, and tilts his head to the side in a show of manufactured adorability. “I’m his cousin. Maria’s side. The Carbonell genes always run strong.”  Famike might have said no at one point, might have insisted that he show some form of identification, or some other form of security measure, but the charm that Ed lays on thick seems to smooth away whatever remaining worries she had, and she simply smiles.

 

“alright, Mister… Carbonell?” Ed nods, and Famike blushes again, prettily. “well, your cousin’s safe with us.”


	4. For What It's Worth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's something happenin' here, what it is ain't exactly clear... I think it's time we stop children, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down."

Tony’s taking full advantage of the fact that no one can see him, to make the most severe confused face he thinks he’s ever made. This guy, this Ed, if that is his real name, is right in that the Carbonell genes always carried strongly down the lines, but he god one crucial detail wrong. Tony’s mom… she doesn’t have siblings. She has cousins of her own, sure, but none with the direct name, more like Furlanis, and Bianchis. So whoever he is, he’s clearly lying, about something. Tony hangs around, listening and waiting, wanting to see if he could get a better inspection of this guy wearing his face and his name (or… the inversion of his name, same difference, as far as tony is concerned.) but he offers infuriatingly little about himself. eventually, tony gets bored, and begins to wander.

 

The nursery is right below the one that he’s on, which shouldn’t be weird, really, except that every patient stares at him. Not just ‘cute newborn, too tired to hold head still’ stare, actual stare. With prolonged eye contact, and little baby fists and mouths wiggling, all eager to see the man before him. He had no earthly idea how children worked. But he didn’t like it. He seemed to be totally invisible to almost everyone around him, but these little heathens seemed to know where he was every minute of the time he spent on their floor. It was unsettling, at best.

 

He wanders down from there, as quickly as possible, fully intending to wander the various floors of the admittedly labyrinthine hospital until he finds something  interesting. He’s just rounding the corner on the end of the Intensive Care Unit, when he walks smack into someone.  He shakes it off, fully willing and ready to right it off as a mistake, when his brain processes, and slams back to him in a single quick burst. He ran into someone. His ethereal, noncorporeal spirit (or as close to one as he would be liktley to say he has) ran into someone. Someone with matter, and mass, and flesh and bone. All the other people he’s seen so far, he simply fades through. Which means that this interaction is now medically relevant. He stops in his tracks, and turns back around, stopping to look at the girl he’d just bumped into.

 

She looks regular enough, in a plain white T shirt, black jeans hugging her hips. She’s faced away from him right now, staring through the window of what appears to be an operating theatre. She doesn’t say anything immediately, just continues to stare, like some part of her is missing, and she curls further into her self, wrapping her arms around her body, tight. Tony’s just to the point of asking her if she’s ok, when she turns to him, with a quiet sniffle.

 

“I’m gonna die, aren’t I?” Tony blinks at her, confused, at first, and then he sees it. The bright red splotches of color seeping through her shirt, and clinging to her skin. Blood. Instantly, he’s on high alert, and he’s stepping forward, eager, desperate to help. As an Avenger, he sees his fair share of blood, but he’s absolutely not prepared to see it, in this case. On a girl, who can’t be more than sixteen. Tony reaches out, and pulls her closer, reaching for her arm to look at it.   


“hey, hey, you’re gonna be ok. Tell me… tell me what happened.” She stutters a few times, before she’s able to form words properly, and she chokes around a sob.

 

“I don’t… I don’t remember. I.. I was so upset. My boyfriend… he left me.” She shakes her head, and chokes out a roughened sob, all over again. “god, that sounds so pathetic! I don’t… I’m not one of _those_ girls.”  Tony shakes his head softly, and tries to comfort the girl.

 

“hey, it’s ok, you don’t have to explain to m—”

“I’m pregnant. Or… was pregnant?” she turns back to look through the operating window, and a fat tear runs down her cheek. “I don’t… I… oh god, what happens to my baby?” Tony moves to open his mouth, but he really has no answers. there’s an alarm that rings sharp in the operating room below. The girl inhales sharply, and curls further in on herself, looking, quite rightly, like she’s in an immense amount of pain. Tony, at a loss for words, wraps her in a hug, and tries to brush the long black tresses of hair out of her face.

 

“Shh, it’s ok. It’s gonna be ok. You’re ok.” He’s sure he’s lying to her, but it’s the best thing that he can do at this point in time. he might not be able to stop anything bad from happening to her, but he can for damn sure, make sure that she’s not alone.

 

What he needs, is to find a medic. See if he can’t convince someone to head in this direction, a nurse, a doctor, even a fucking mailroom clerk would work at this point. Anyone who could run for someone qualified to help. The movies have it all wrong, he’s meant to be able to /help/ people, in the balance like this, right? He’s meant to do something and yet here he is, with a girl whos name he doesn’t even know, dying in his arms. Not ideal.

The girl gasps again, and manages to take a step back, looking with panicked eyes, from Tony, to the operating theatre, and back again. Tony’s just starting to ask what’s the matter, if she knows the person in OR, or if she has any damn clue about anything, when she looks up at him with a soft smile.

 

“thank you. I… I’ll be ok. I’m gonna be ok.” Even though he’s jut been telling her the exact same thing, now that his words are being echoed back to him, he’s confused, and nearly ready to ask her how the hell that could be. There’s a sudden silence, as a beeping sound that they’ve grown used to hearing, stops. He turns to look down at the theatre, and notes that sure enough, one of the main monitors has been turned off. He moves to look back at the girl, and she’s disappeared. He’s getting sick of people doing that.

 

He moves to walk down the hall, to see if he can’t locate the teen, but a flurry of movement causes him to look back through the window. The chief surgeon looks to be closing, finishing up with several thick sutures. But that’s not what interests him, not by a long shot. There, hidden amongst surgical blue gowns, and white gauze, is a small head of long black hair, stretched far out of the way, draped over the pillows. It can’t be, it really can’t, but that’s somehow the same girl tony had just seen no less than two minutes ago. For having an IQ of nearly 200, it takes him a lot longer to recognize what’s happening, than it should. So he’s not the only one in limbo, then. That’s… that’s definitely interesting.


	5. The Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm not a perfect person, there's many things I wish I didn't do. but, I continue learning- I never meant to do those things to you. And so I have to say before I go, that I just want you to know. I've found a reason for me, to change who I used to be, a reason to start over new, and the reason... is you."

The quiet, alone with tony in the room wasn’t really so bad. It was awkward, sure, stilted, but it was understandable. Those in comas, don’t tend to make the best conversationalists, after all. The quiet, with Ed in the room, is just unsettling. It’s oppressive, and pervasive, and Steve can feel the last of his self control fading away in an evanescence of emotion.

 

“so you’ve covered who you are, ‘Ed’. Want to explain ‘why’ exactly you’re here, now?” Steve’s sure to put a certain amount of emphasis on the other mans name, let him know that Steve’s still not exactly buying the cover story of being from another universe. (can you blame him?) but, if the brunet notices, he doesn’t acknowledge it, in the slightest. He’s fiddling with something, in his lap, a piece of technology not unlike a StarkPad, but more hardware intense, less holograph dependent, like the ones in the Tower. Ed must catch him checking the piece of technology out subtly, because he smirks, without looking up, and swipes a few pages off to the side.

 

  
“when Tony was still in the beginning stages of design, he hit a crucial dev fork. Keep the brand purist, appeal to top medical and technological moguls like himself, or go for the lowest common denominator, make something that can be mass produced, watered down, made indestructible, for all the soccer moms with rowdy kids, and business stiffs with semi-important proposals.” He shrugs slightly, like the rest of the story is obvious, and to be fair, it kind of is, now that it’s all out there. “you see what direction your Tony went. Me—” he gestures disdainfully to the thing in his lap, and makes a vague hand motion, clearly meant to indicate ‘this’. There’s a beat, just a brief thing where it seems like he might actually be ashamed, but after a few seconds, he laughs, and shakes his head. “to be fair though, I have much better media connectivity. Seriously, if this guy ever comes around, one word: Bluetooth.” Steve blinks.

 

“for being a completely different person, you’re a lot more like him that you’d think.” He says, indifferently, looking back over to the bed, where Tony still lies, puffs of air fogging the oxygen mask that’s covering his mouth and nose.

 

“who, Tony?” Ed shrugs, like it should be obvious. “I’m not like him, I _am_ him. Or. My universes version of him. C’mon frozone, you can’t tell me that you haven’t laid out under the stars on a summer night, and just wondered if there were other places. Other whole worlds with other people just like us.” He trails off, and Steve’s only response is a slight frown. The worst part is that no, he really can’t say he hasn’t done just that. More than once. Ed continues, like Steve’s response was never really important anyway. “and if there can be other worlds, cap, why not other universes? Huh? Why not other places just like this big blue marble that are different, in one way, or a zillion?” Steve ‘humphs’ softly.

“So how are you here?” Ed smiles softly, amused, but not ceding.

“nope. ‘fraid I can’t let you ask that, Starfox.” Steve must look confused, because there’s a sparkle in Ed’s eyes, that looks a helluva lot like mischief. “if I tell you, you’ll tell him. And if you don’t think Tony’ll search to the ends of the earth, to prove time travel exists, you’ve clearly never met the man. Your world isn’t ready for that. Not yet. And if I create too many paradoxes, I’m stuck here, which throws my world into chaos, and so on. Kinda like a puddle, one drop causes a ripple, goes all the way out to the edge of the pond. Or in this case, the galaxy.” He pauses in his speech, and looks over to the bed, watching the steady ‘puff puff’ of Tony’s breaths against the plastic mask. His next words are quiet, only meant as an off comment, of no real consequence, but they nearly knock Steve out of his seat. “it’s why I haven’t told you what’s wrong with him, yet.”

 

Steve goes through the full range of human emotion in the next five or so seconds. Elation. Trepidation. rage, loss, grief, hope, fear, bargaining, hysteria. He goes through so much, so fast, he’s left feeling dizzy, but he manages to settle himself, force himself to focus on what’s important. Ed knows what’s wrong. Ed knows, and he can help, and all Steve has to do, is make sure that it doesn’t affect a timeline. That’s… that’s not that hard, right? He scoots to the edge of the chair he’s sitting on, and fixes Ed with the most solid, unwavering stare that he can manage.

“Tell me. Tell me what’s wrong, and we can fix it. There has to be something, right, there has to be some way…” He’s really not sure how he’s expecting ed to respond, but with tears isn’t it. He swallows thickly, and tilts his head to the side, not unlike a confused puppy, though of course he can’t see so for himself. Ed swipes quickly at a tear that rolls down his cheek, and shakes his head.

 

“Steve, don’t you think I want to? Don’t you think this is killing me every bit as much as it is you? I’d love to tell you how to fix him. But I can’t. I can’t do that, or I’ll throw everything off balance.”

Steve’s usually a patient man. Slow to anger, quick to forgive. But something about this, about being so fucking close to the answer, and still further away than ever is just enough to make him lose his composure. He’s standing before he realizes it, and he’s glaring daggers down at Ed. “Why would you come here, if you’re not any use to me! Why come find us, just to rub it in my face?!”

Ed’s up just as fast, standing in Steve’s space, and pushing back against him just as hard, even for his significant height difference. “Because I can’t lose you again!”

 

Silence descends on the room.

 

There’s nothing, but the sound of Steve’s breaths, haggard and harsh in the quiet antiseptic laced air around them, for several long moments. When he finally calms down enough, to speak, his voice is rough with raw emotion. “you… what?” Ed scoffs, andturns away, so similar to the way Tony is, when upset with himself.

 

“my universe. Didn’t think there was a Steve there too? There is. Or there… there was. There was, until I went and got myself put in a fucking coma.” A look of shock crosses Steve’s face, he knows it does, but there’s little to nothing that he can do about it, he always has had the worst tells. Ed shrugs softly. “it’s not the same. Not. Not exactly. It’s close enough though. I went into a coma, rated an eight on the Glasgow Coma Scale, which is… not ideal. They were convinced that I’d be vegetative for life. My Steve fought the doctors for as long as he could, put up every bit of fight in his body, which is uh. No inconsiderable amount. But we weren’t married, or engaged, or anything other than on-again off-again lovers, to anyone but the team. So they puled the plug.”

 

A thousand questions run through Steve’s mind, and they all clamber over each other, in a rush to get to the front and get said first. The thing that wins out in the end is possibly the most direct. “you’re still here?” Ed shrugs.

 

“thing about comas, is you don’t exactly know what’s gonna happen. They pulled my life support, which meant the G tube I had in, but I was still breathing by myself. So while they waited for me to waste away… I dunno, I recovered. Miraculously. They didn’t think I was gonna make it but… I did.” Ed sighs, and again, tears well up in his expressive brown eyes. In Tony’s eyes, for all intents and purposes. “but not before Steve gave up. He kept taking missions, the entire time I was down, to… I don’t know, distract himself, I guess? After they pulled the plug, on the last mission he… he just gave up. Let himself get gunned down. I woke up three days later.”  Ed’s last few words echo in the space between them, and on a constant loop in Steve’s head ‘I woke up three days later. I woke up three days later. Three days later’… Steve feels completely guted, and the confession is enough to make him sink back into the chair and drop his head into his hands.

 

“oh god.” He mutters softly.  Ed stands awkwardly for a few more seconds, and then he takes an aborted half step toward the door.

 

“that’s… I know that’s a lot. I know it is. You probably need… a minute or two. I’m gonna… go get some snacks.” Steve looks up at him, lost as ever, and Ed holds a hand up. “I know your metabolism is fast. You’ve been sitting in that chair for at least six hours, and you haven’t moved a muscle. You need food, even if you don’t want it. Sit. Rest. I’ll be right back.” With that, Ed heads for the door, and the sound of it being shut behind him rings in steve’s head, long after it’s stopped. He takes a deep breath, and hangs his head into his hands, wondering how the hell he’s meant to ‘relax’ with news like that.


	6. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How far will I go, to make it feel right? come home, I have to fix this on my own. replace my heart, because mine broke the day I let us end. Replace my heart, I don't wanna live by coping, I'm done with hoping, end."

Despite the first encounter that tony had had with another person in limbo (limbo-er? Limboite? There’s a nickname there somewhere.) wandering the halls of the hospital, is more than less quiet. He’s able to go through wards and rooms as he likes, get all the way up to the rooftop gardens, and all the way down to the boiler room. He’s intimately familiar now, with the supply closets, and he knows that a nurse named Martha, in radiology, is stealing printer toner. In mass amounts. At one point, he follows a couple out of the emergency room doors, and he steps onto the sidewalk, but something worries him. Something primal, and frightened, and base, tells him that he shouldn’t head that way. So he turns back around, and heads further into the maze of medical wonders.

 

He's not expecting to see another person, not after this long alone, but sure enough there is. A pleasant enough looking woman, in a suit. She’s standing at parade rest, outside of a room, with the door closed, and the lights dark. Tony pauses in his egress, half afraid she’ll see him, and half hoping she will. She turns, eventually, and gives Tony a perfunctory nod. Now that her body’s angled more, he can see that she’s not in just any suit, but army dress. It’s odd enough, she can’t be more than thirty, but the uniform is one of the older styles, nothing before Vietnam, certainly. He doesn’t exactly tell his body to do it, but he nods anyway, even in the absence of his own permission. A lifetime of bowing and scraping in Howard’s wake, perhaps.  


“thank you for your service, ma’am.” Something weird flicks across her face, something brief and quick, but painful, nonetheless. It takes Tony’s brain a second or two to catch up, but when it does, he whines softly, involuntarily.

 

“Shit, did I…” he squints at the woman again, at the way she holds herself, the tense clench to her jaws, the way her shoulders are set just so. He’s not anywhere near to sure, but he wants to ask. He needs to know if he fucked this up. “Did I misgender you?” she blinks, unsure, and Tony knows there’s a blush rising up on his cheeks. Despite his cavalier press persona, he hates moments like this, where he says the wrong thing, at the wrong time. “I mean, are you… ah, a guy?” the person in front of him blinks again, and all of a sudden, he can see a small smile, where there wasn’t one before.

 

“you might say that. Always saw myself as one, anyhow.” He turns back to look through the small window on the door, the glass reinforced with wire mesh, to prevent shattering. “y’know, I served my country three times. Back when no one wanted to give me a chance. I still remember what it was like when people like me were considered crazy.” He laughs softly, and shakes his head softly. “kids these days have it so much easier. They can make their own futures.” Tony smirks softly, and folds his arms across his chest defensively, for no particular reason whatsoever.

 

“yeah, until the world takes it from them.” It’s meant to be a joke, a one-off one liner, something dropped for laughs and not to be taken seriously, but the soldier looks at him with a deep scrutiny. He looks like he might have something sharp to say, but in the end, he just smiles, and winks.

 

“So they take it back.” Tony’s still thinking up something to say in response, when there’s a quiet voice down the hall, that rings with the warmth of the sun, and sounds like it would float on the breeze, like the scent of honeysuckle on a warm summer morning.

 

“William?” the woman that speaks is gorgeous, standing at the other end of the hall, wrapped head to toe in a red dress, strappy at he shoulders and back, and dripping in crystals, so much so, that as she steps forward, there’s the faintest of tinkling sounds. Her hair’s swept elegantly up into an elegant bun at the back of her head, and pinned with a large red rose, perfectly color matched to her dress. Tony smiles softly.

 

“someone you know?” he asks the soldier. William smiles and shrugs vaguely.

“lucky bastard, aren’t I?” he steps toward the end of the hall, and grabs the woman’s hand, kissing it softly. He holds his arm out, offering it to her, and she hooks hers around easily, waving at Tony, before turning to grab a handful of her skirt, keeping the beautiful fabric from trailing on the floor. They’re almost to the corner at the end of the hall, when William turns around, and sends Tony a quick nod. “hey kid. Do yourself a favor. Make sure you make your own life too.” With that, they turn down the hall and disappear, and Tony’s not terribly surprised to hear the sound of an EKG flatlining in the room in front of him.

 

He can’t help but to be sad that William’s gone, even as he got to watch the soldier have his own happy ending. He wonders, briefly, if that’s what it would look like if he goes. If he crosses the barrier, decides to stop hanging around here, and go to the ‘great beyond’ in whatever form it takes, will he have someone beautiful to take him there? Who would it be? Who would even love him enough to care where he went?   


He knows his mind’s manifestation of Steve is there, before he even turns around. His mind is nothing, if not predictable, and downright cliché. He turns slowly, and dream Steve is staring at him, that easy understanding smile locked on his perfect lips. “I’ll take you, Tony.”

 

He should say no, he should turn away, and be done with it, but he’s weak, and something tells him that’s the only way he’ll ever be able to have Steve. He sighs softly, but his lips quirk up in something of a smile.

 

“Might not be too bad.”


	7. Heaven is a Place On Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In this world, we're just beginning to understand the miracle of living. Baby, I was afraid before, but I'm not afraid anymore. baby, do you know what it's worth? Heaven is a place on earth. They say in heaven, love comes first, we'll make heaven a place on earth."

Steve’s exhausted. He’s been crying, for what seems like an eternity. He’s so close to being able to help tony, but further away than he could ever be. He had no idea what to do, so… he cries. He cries, and though he wipes each tear away as it comes, it always seems like there’s another one there to replace it. At some point, he gives up, and just lets it go. A nurse had been in earlier, to switch Tony’s drip bags, and mentioned something about a new medication, something given as a half hopeful treatment to epileptic patients who’ve suffered too many seizures. She’d made it sound like the prognosis was grim, and frankly, that fits how Steve’s feeling.

 

They’re not medically certain, whether or not those in comas can hear the words of their loved ones. There are a handful of studies that would suggest both, each contradicting each other, until they all seemed worthless to the scientific community. But Steve isn’t the scientific community. Steve is desperate. Steve is desperate, and lonely, and scared, and he’s at he end of his rope. So he does the only thing he can think of. He talks.

 

“Tony.” he starts off quietly. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but… you’ve gotta come back, pal. I don’t know what I’m gonna do without ya. Or what I’m gonna tell the team. No one knows what happened, and I hate that I wasn’t there for you. If you don’t come back, I don’t know how I’m gonna forgive myself for this.” He hates how pathetic it sounds, but it’s true. He cares about tony, more than he maybe has any logical, sane, reasonable right to. He feels like he’s spinning out of control, and has no idea what to do. He sniffles softly, and drops his forehead to the edge of the bed. “Tony, you gotta come back to me. I… I love you.” It feels odd, to say it out loud, after all of this time, but right nonetheless.

 

**

Tony’s just taken Dream Steve’s hand, is just getting ready to walk down the hall with him, when there’s a lurch feeling that stops him dead in his tracks. It’s something kind of like nausea, but with the added misery of butterflies and jitters all at once. He doesn’t make a conscious effort to let go of Dream Steve’s hand,  but the next that he’s aware, it’s gone. Dream Steve is talking to him, is saying something, but Tony can’t hear him anymore. His mouth is moving, but he’s suddenly fuzzy at the edges, ill-defined like looking at an image through a cup of water. The last thing he hears, is Dream Steve screaming his name, and then he’s blinking his eyes open slowly, to cornsilk blonde hair and big hands, gripped tightly onto the blanket.

**

The next few days are a blur, nurses running to and fro, S.H.I.E.L.D officials, and Avengers team members coming to check on Tony, as well as ack what happened. Tony tells most of them that he doesn’t know. He was in the air one minute, and down the next. Steve gets the full story, in a quiet moment, between meals and naps.

 

“I didn’t… I didn’t realize the addiction had gotten so bad, Steve. I used to go to AA every week, and then I just… I got busy. One drink became two, became three, became more days drunk than there were sober. We were so busy last week, so many people to fight, I guess… I wasn’t drinking as much. that combined with my heart issues, caused me to have a seizure. One wouldn’t have been much of a damage, but I got electrocuted by one of the mutant kids in the last fight, and the shock set my brain off again. not enough time to recover between seizures, made it just sort of… give up.”

 

Steve sits and listens with rapt attention, hanging off of every single word that Tony says. He’s fascinated, and terrified, all at once. He wants to believe that Tony’s well again, but the reality of the situation is that he’s still banged up from the fall, he still has a long way to go, before he’s anywhere near field ready again. Steve doesn’t care if he never goes into the field again, he just wants his friend to be ok. There’s something that bothers him, something that he feels like he needs to clarify.

 

“Tony… you were out for almost two whole days, while they poked and prodded around your body, trying to figure out what happened? How… how did they figure it out so quickly in the end?” Tony squirms slightly, like he always does, when he’s uncomfortable about anything. The cut of a new shirt, tension in the tower, a battle plan that Fury wants enacted, that’s almost surely guaranteed to fail. His eyes are trained into an area of the room, the far corner, but Steve gets the distinct feeling that he’s not exactly _seeing_ anything there.

 

He’s patient, even for as much as he wants to scream, as much as he wants to run out of the room, terrified that after it all seemed to be going so well, that something will go terribly wrong, and Tony will be taken from him all over again. he swallows thickly, and waits for Tony. eventually, Tony opens his mouth, and looks like he’s on the verge of saying something profound. What comes out of his mouth is not what Steve expected. 

 

“can we go outside?”

**

The rooftop garden is surprisingly well kept, for as hot as it is, this time of year. Where you might expect there to be dead leaves, or plants scorched by wind and sun and not enough water, it’s instead, lush and green, and flowery. Wind blows through the few trees that are up here, leaving a nice rustling sound that makes a great ambience. Tony’s just relaxed, leaning up against the back of his wheelchair (the orderlies had insisted, despite them both arguing against it.) eyes closed, enjoying the sunlight on him after what felt like a week straight inside, under fluorescent lights.

 

There’s a strange energy between Steve and Tony though, something significant, that neither of them are talking about. It seems like something needs to be admitted to, but Steve can’t exactly identify what it would be. He clears his throat for the fifteenth time, and Tony finally sits up, looking over to him.

 

“I was… awake. For all of it. S-sort of.” Steve makes a pained sound, a quiet little intake of breath, and leans unconsciously closer to Tony.

 

“are you ok? Were you scared?” Tony shrugs one shoulder, and looks off at the farthest point of the city skyline that he can see.

 

“it was… alright. Seeing another me was weird.” Steve hums quietly, and nods his agreement, and Tony bites at his lip softly. “that’s… actually what I wanted to talk about. The nurses… they said that the only way knew what to check me for, is that someone left them a note… Steve, Ed’s been gone for a couple days, do you think?”

 

Steve sighs softly, and his eyebrows furrow together some, as he thinks it over. It’s not something that he’d thought about, everything had changed pace after Ed disappeared, but… it’s a theory that definitely has validity. He shakes his head softly. “I don’t… I don’t know. But you know what? If he brought you back… whatever consequences it might have, I can’t be anything but grateful to him. For once, please don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

 

Tony smirks softly, and shakes his head. “you’re no fun, you know what cap? No fun.” Steve rolls his eyes, and shoves Tony’s wheelchair slightly.

 

“yeah, yeah. I’m a senior citizen, pretty sure mocking me is a crime.” Tony mutters a fond;

“your fashion statement is a crime,” before falling back into quiet thought.

 

“there was… another you, too. I think he was supposed to… take me to the other side, or whatever.” Steve raises an eyebrow, in intrigue and Tony groans quietly. “I know. I know how it sounds. Bear with me. I… when you asked me to come back… I was about to leave with him. Steve, you pulled me / _back_./”

 

Steve’s not sure what makes him do it, doesn’t know what devil jumps into his mouth, and makes him speak his thoughts into reality, but he does. He does, and saying it, is like feeling a thousand pound weight lifted off of his shoulders.

 

“I love you.” There’s a beat of silence between them, and Steve feels a blush start to creep up his neck and cheeks. “I’m in love with you, Tony. have been for a while and… I get if you don’t feel the same bu—” Tony has to lean so far out of the wheelchair to reach Steve, that he nearly falls over. The angle is off, and neither of them have shaved in days, so their stubble is scraping together something awful, but it’s somehow the single most perfect kiss that either of them have ever had. Steve pulls away, dazed, and Tony smiles gently, a soft and timid thing that’s far too embarrassed to be anything but genuine.

 

“I um. I love you too.” He reaches out with a heavily bandaged left arm, and allows his hand to trail down the gentle sweeping curve of Steve’s cheek. They sit like that, just… sit, for a long time. enjoying each other’s presence, and soaking a world that finally seems like a much brighter place.

 

Eventually, Tony starts to feel restless, just sitting. He sighs dramatically, and leans over the side of the wheelchair, draping an arm over his forehead, like some wilting Southern Belle. “whoever will care enough about me, to take back into my room?” he adds to the performance, by batting his eyelashes.

 

Steve shakes his head, and ruffles gentle fingers through Tony’s hair. “you’re insufferable. You know that?” Tony nods, with a wicked smile, and Steve leans down to press the gentlest of kisses to Tony’s cheek. “c’mon. I’ll take you.” Tony feels his heart flutter, and make a valiant attempt to beat out of his chest. After everything, he still manages to find himself smiling. This time, he’ll let himself go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right! so, I hope you guys liked it! I kept meaning to add in smut, but it just... didn't feel like it ever fit anywhere. I might do an update, that's later on in their relationship? we shall see!

**Author's Note:**

> Join me on Tumblr, where sometimes I do things! - @thejovialkynnadyg-ray. want to hit me up about a Marvel rp? email me at- JovialHarp5159@gmail.com!


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